Tag Archives: tutorial

It’s the last day of 2013 and I thought I’d end off the year by doing something that I’ve been meaning and wanting to do for a while. David from Moon Sugar Decals contacted me and offered a free sample of their nail transfer decals for review. You can visit their site here.

I was very impressed that these were sent all the way to South Africa, no problem. I received them a while ago and I’ve been so excited to try them. I’ve put together a short How To as well as a review of the product and my experiences.

I’m going to skip ahead to the final result, as I think it’s really great. I’m so happy! If you want to know more, you can read further. Here is the final mani:

Here’s the finer print for those of you who want to do this at home:

I received 2 types of decals: A skull rose design and pink Breast Cancer Awareness Ribbons. The decals come in long strips with between 10 and 13 decals (my skulls had 10 and the ribbons had 13).

This is what you will need to do a decal/transfer manicure:

Step 1:
First things first, you need to apply a base coat and whichever undercoat you would like. I used Revlon COLORSTAY “090 Sorbet” for the accent nail. The other nails have Revlon “Sparkle Aplenty” on them. Paint the required number of coats and wait for them to dry completely.

Step 2:
Now, the first thing I noticed that was different from other transfers I’ve used is that you do not need to remove a top plastic layer. The plastic later on top actually has the design attached to it (so don’t tear it off).

Cut the decals as close as you can to the image.

Step 3:
Using your tweezers, dip your decal into the warm water.

Step 4:
Place the transfer on your nail and slide it off.

Step 5:
Paint two coats of top coat on top of the decal. And that’s it! Easy 🙂

What do I think?
All in all, I was impressed with the quality of the transfers. The detail and clarity of the images are amazing once they are on your nails. The only confusing thing is the transparent layer on top which was different to what I was used to. I didn’t know to cut it so close the the image. But hopefully my trail and error will help you with yours.

I would really recommend these decals, the product is great and they have a good selection of different images.

I’ve been wanting to try these nails for a while. It’s a simple concept and I love how it turned out! It gives your nails such a lovely texture and it’s easy enough to do quickly. I wanted very earthy colours to imitate a stone/marble texture. Check out the photo tutorial if you want to try it yourself!

The polishes I used were:

Undercoat nude: Modi 43

Dark brown: OPI “Wooden Shoe Like to Know?”

Light brown/gold: Tip Top 919 “Iced Almond”

If you live in South Africa and are looking for some super cute nail midi rings and nail rings, check out Nail Candi.

I’m so happy that leopard print is back, because I love it! Also, thank goodness it’s really easy to create your own leopard print nails. The great thing with leopard print is that it never has to be 100% perfect.. The more irregular the shapes, the better it looks. So… Here’s a step-by-step tutorial how to do leopard print nails:

Step 1:

Choose your undercoat color and paint your undercoat. I used the natural colours because I wanted to do two accent nails to spruce it up a bit. So, I used a nude from Missha. For my accent nails I painted half nude and half burnt pink (Missha). But you don’t have to do accent nails.

Step 2:

Use your second colour to create random irregular shapes on your nail. I try to keep all the “blobs” about the same size, but some are long and thin while others are round and fatter. I used a nail art brush, but you could also use a dotting tool. I prefer to make these dots smaller and do more. Other people sometimes do larger blobs and fewer. I used OPI “Wooden Shoe Like to Know” for this step.

Remember: keep a bit of space between each for the third colour and don’t stress if it doesn’t look like much yet.

Step 3:

If you are not doing an accent nail, then this will be your final step. Using a small paint brush or nail art brush paint black around your brown blobs. For this step, DON’T just make a perfect black ring around your brown. The black lines should be broken. Also, they can follow the contours of your irregular blobs.

If you have large spaces between leopard print dots, you can use your black to draw short lines and dots. This will fill up the space and complete the look.

Step 4: Accent Nails

For my accent nails (ring and middle fingers) I only did the leopard print on the nude half of the nails. The burnt pink I left blank. Then, down the dividing line in the center of each nail I stuck gold square metal studs. I really like the effect this creates.

Finally, remember to put a top coat on. And that’s it!

You can go wild (excuse the pun) with leopard print 🙂 Check out some other ideas for leopard print that I was playing around with on my nail wheel.

I’m having so much fun on my nail wheels, I don’t know why I didn’t get them sooner! I hope you like them.. Which is your favorite? 🙂

I’ve finally attempted to put together a tutorial. A lot of people are unsure how to do the ombre or gradient effect, so I hope that by sharing how I do it it will help. Remember, I’m no expert, but I’ll give it a try. So here it goes 🙂

What you will need:

Base coat (optional)

White nail polish as an undercoat.

At least 2 different polishes (preferably colours which contrast or range from dark to light)

The polishes I used. All Sally Hansen Xtream Wear. From left to right – “Black out”, “Purple Potion”, “Twisted Pink, “White on”.

I attempted to do a four colour gradient, which was perhaps a bit overly ambitious. Two or three colours are just as pretty and effective (You can see a two colour ombre mani I did a few days ago Ombre Nails. Also, I found with four colours there was quite a bit of wastage, this will be avoided if you overlap the colours more to make the area that the polish covers on the sponge smaller (Here is another 4 colour ombre mani I did a few days ago with black, dark brown, beige and white Ombre With a Twist.

Once you have all of these goodies and you’ve decided on your colours, you are ready to get started 🙂

1. Apply base coat.
2. Apply your white undercoat and allow to dry.

3. Put scotch tape around your nails (trust me, this will save on cleaning up later).

4. Hold your sponge in one hand, paint your colours directly on the sponge. Paint them in the order that you want them and overlap the colours slightly, this will help blend them a bit.

5. Immediately after applying your colours to the sponge, roll the sponge onto your first nail (Don’t press too hard as all the polish can ooze out of the sponge, just sponge down relatively lightly on your nail). If the colours aren’t blended enough, then you can press the sponge on the nail again. Don’t sponge more than about 3 times, as the polish on the nail dries it can pull off more polish than it puts on.

6. Repeat this process for each nail. Apply more polish before each nail, unless you think you have enough polish on the sponge already.
7. Wait for the first coat to dry and then repeat the process for the second coat. (haha, look at all the wastage, oops! Maybe I should’ve spaced the colours closer together or just used 3 colours)